Fatherly reflections
by Rochi Saiyajin
Summary: Right after the end of their adventure, two men as stubborn as Mutt and Indiana can t get along easily. Mutt is a teenager and Indy doesn t know how to be a father but when something serious happens to his son,could Indy learn what means to be a father?
1. Chapter 1

Hi

Disclaimer: Unfortunatly, I don´t own Indiana Jones or any of his characters (I don´t own Harrison Ford or the gorgeous Shia LaBeuf either).

Hi! I just saw today the newest movie of Indiana Jones in Madrid (I´m spanish so, please, forgive my grammatical mistakes) and I am curious about the relationship between Indy and his recently found son, Mutt (in spanish version his name is Matt, but in english fanfiction I saw his name witten with "u" so I will use it like that). Is easy for a child to accept that everything you think you know about your origins are a lie? Therefore, how do you react if you met your real father who acts like your opinions doesn´t matter a thing for him? And Indy, what would you think if you suddenly discover that the kid you just met is really a son from which you have never heard a word? A son that isn´t exactly what you could expect from your own kid? Everything seems too easy in the film. But we know that Indy aren´t a soft person. Built a true relationship with a stubborn child like Mutt could cost a lot of time, unless...something happens. Only if something happens to him, a person like Indy would be able to let his true feelings go out. This story takes place just after the end of the movie adventure, a little before the wedding scene, when Mutt, Indy, Marion and Ox are still in the jungle. I hope you like it! Don´t read it if you didn´t see the 4th movie yet!

Chapter one

"Stop doing that!", shouted Mutt to his parents, who were finished some business from the past kissing each other breathless.

"Why should we, son?", said Indiana, smiling.

"Don´t call me that!", shouted Mutt.

"Why? You are my son", said Indiana.

"Only a day ago, you wasn´t my father, so stop acting if you would have raised me because, obviously, that´s not true! My father isn´t Indiana Jones, he never was, my real father was called Colin Williams and he died in the war as a militar pilot, this has always been like that and like that it will remain and an adventure in the Amazonas won´t change that to me, so get out of there and go back home", said Mutt.

"Kid, you like it or not, you are my son and you will have to learn to live with it", said Indiana. Marion punched him slightly in the arm.

"Be gentle with him, he is only a child and he is confused", she warned him in a low voice, so Mutt couldn´t hear them. "Mutt, we know that this is hard to accept for you, but..."

"Do you know? Do you think you know? You don´t know anything, mom! How would you feel if you suddenly discover that your whole life was a lie? That the father I always dreamt about when I were a kid, the one you told me that he was a good person, a brave militar and a great dad was nothing more than a chimera? That the man you showed me in the photos as my father when I was a kid wasn´t him, but this stranger who left you pregnant one month before your wedding day and about whom I didn´t hear a single word until a couple of days ago?", shouted Mutt.

"It isn´t his fault, Mutt, he didn´t know about you before", said Marion.

"And what? You know it and you lied to me! You lied to me my whole life telling me that my father was a ghost!".

"And what you expect, Mutt? What should I tell you when you were younger? He left before you was born, you was only a baby, for God´s sake! Should I have said to you that your father was alive but he didn´t know nothing about your existence? Is that what you want? You were a child, you would never have undestood it!", said Marion.

"Maybe I haven´t undestood it then, but I am old enough to know it for years and I had to discover it by chance in the middle of the damn jungle fighting for our lives, if that stupid russians haven´t kidnapped you, you would carried this secret to the grave and I would never know who was my true father!".

"Do you think you are an adult, Mutt? You are only a kid!", said Marion.

"Of course, I am a kid when I say that I have all the rights to know the truth, but when I have to save your sorry ass and Ox´s from the russias I am an adult, don´t I, mom?"

"Don´t talk your mother like that!", said Indiana.

"I´m not talking to you, professor, that´s not your problem, stay away from our business", said Mutt.

"It´s my business, I am your father now".

"I already said to you that you aren´t my father! A word more or less don´t make you my father, you never was and you never will, so go back to your school and leave us alone!", shouted Mutt.

"Look, stupid brat", said Indiana, approaching him, threating him with his index finger, "you will stop saying nosense in this very instant and you will behave, because when we leave this damn jungle you will sell that stupid bike of yours, you will return to your studies and you will be a normal person, do you undestand me, boy?".

"You can´t give me any orders, professor Jones! I won´t sell my bike, I won´t return to my studies and I will behave as I want, because I don´t have any reason for obey you so take your beloved hat, doctor Jones and go out of here, because probably we won´t see each other in the rest of our lives after that!", shouted Mutt.

"Listen, tadpole!", shouted Indiana, somewhat distressed by his rejection without knowing very well why, "Do you think this is easy for me? Two days ago, I only depended on myself, I didn´t have more responsabilities than look over my own skin and now I recently found out that I am attached to a woman I left more than fifteen years ago by a stupid and ignorant brat about whom I didn´t know a thing whose my honor compels me to take charge of him! Do you think I like this situation? Do you think I want to be the father of an useless and stupid boy who the only talent he has is being able to comb his hair in any situation and who hasn´t even been intelligent enough to finish his studies, a father of someone who can barely defend himself? Who would want to be the father of a failure like you? I don´t want to be your father, of course not, but things are like they are and now you are my son and I will make a true man of you, like it or not, so stop saying nosense and accept the reality because if it weren´t for the requirements that unites me to you, for me, you could go to the damn hell!", shouted Indiana. His words were followed by an absolute silence. Indiana considered his words and knew that he had inadvertently crossed an invisible line which he shouldn´t have walked upon. He looked Mutt straight in the eye and he regretted every word he said for provoking the emotions he saw in his son´s soul. There was anger, resentment in them, but also sorrow and a countless pain. Mutt really believed that his father´s words were true. Indiana saw that he really thought that he was a failure, but that hear it from other person, who furthermore was his own father, was much more humiliating and much more painful at the same time.

"Kid, I didn´t mean...", Indiana began to say, trying to fix something that didn´t have any possible solution at all. He didn´t really think what he said about him before; certainly dissapointed him that his son didn´t want to study like him, but that didn´t mean that the boy was stupid or ignorant at all; formal education wasn´t everything and that was something that could be easily arranged. He proved his intelligence a lot of times in this voyage and he wasn´t a failure at all. How many boys of his age could have gone through all that adventure without screaming like a baby and cry calling his mother? It had been a very dangerous trip and he knew that the boy had defended himself well to be this his first adventure of this kind. He remembered his fencing battle against Spalko over a car in motion and he couldn´t avoid that a foreing feeling of fatherly pride spread out in his chest. He himself couldn´t have done it better. No, the boy was far from being a failure and he knew it. He only wanted to hurt him with his words. And when he saw his son trying to contain the tears he knew he succeeded.

"Don´t say more, doctor Jones. You already said everything", said Mutt in a low voice. "Don´t worry about me, professor. You don´t have to become charge of me, I am not a kid anymore, I am already raised. Therefore, you didn´t know I existed so come back to your old life and ignore that you met me one day, I am only a mistake in your life that must be erased. I release you from any responsability you could have about me. After all, you are right about me: Who could want a failure for son? And that is what I am: a failure. Come back to your life, doctor Jones; I will returned to my stupid existence too".

"Come on, Mutt, don´t be like that, you...", began to say Indiana while Mutt walked to the stairs of the temple. He didn´t have the chance to end the sentence before the "click" of some gun´s secure being realised put him on alert again. It was right then when he saw two russian aim them to the head with their guns. He had been an idiot not supossing that Spalko would have left several agents behind to cover the rearguard; although he was surprised that these two agent survived the deadly trap in which the lost city became only a few minutes ago but, by the aspect they had, their survival was a truly miracle.

"Where are comrade Spalko?", asked one of them, pointing Indiana in the head with his gun. Indiana smiled ironically, remembering the fate that their enemy faced. Indiana put Marion behind him to protect her.

"She must be...lost in her thoughts", said Indiana, simply. He looked at Mutt, who was growling at their enemies. Indiana made him a gesture, ordering him to approach to him but, if Mutt saw him, he didn´t obey his father. Indiana cursed; from the position he was in, he couldn´t protect his child along with Marion and he was sure that the Russians won´t let him go near his son. He had to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

"We will find comrade Spalko by ourselves, but we already are in the lost city so we don´t need you four anymore", said one of the russian, pointing his gun to Indiana´s head.

"But I think that the one that isn´t really necesary is...you", said Indiana, with an ironic smile. Then, he grabbed his whip and with a quickly movement he snatched the gun away from the russian before kicked him out of the edge of the tower. "Well, I think I drop the idea".

"How funny, Indy", said Marion, ironic.

"Indiana, watch out!", shouted Mutt suddenly. Indiana turned toward his position to see how the other russian was pointing at him with his gun ready to shot him. He was too far to reach it with his whip and he had no weapons, so he was virtually defenseless in front of him. Indiana cursed in a low voice, but he knew that he always escaped from situations like that one. Luck had always been his ally, it wouldn´t leave him right now. They will live, like always. How, that was what he didn´t know. But he closed his eyes when he heard the shoot, thinking that his luck was on vacation that day while he waited to feel the pain in his skin. But the pain never came. Indiana opened his eyes, relieved and curious to know why the bullet didn´t reach him. He opened them in time to see how Mutt ran towards him and shielded him with his body. The breath ran out of his body when he saw Mutt with his arms extended in front of him with his eyes in blank while a trail of blood fell off the new wound of his chest.

"MUTT! NO!", shouted Indiana while Mutt was falling to the ground, nearly unconscious, but Indiana caught him in the air before he could hit himself against the stone ground of the tower.

"Don´t worry, doctor Jones, you will be with him in the other world very soon", said the russian with a malevolent smile.

"SHUT THE HELL UP! HE IS NOT DEAD! DID YOU HEAR ME? HE WON´T DIE!", shouted Indiana, holding his son in his lap, without dare to look at Mutt, afraid about he could see.

"As you like, doctor Jones, but I know something for sure: you will be dead very soon", said him, pointing with his gun to Indiana´s head again. He, defenceless again, tried to protect Mutt with his own body, but the kid didn´t let him and, long before the russian could react, Mutt quickly got his knife from his boot and he threw it to the russian´s trachea. He had no time to found out what happened to him before falling dead to the ground.

"Like all his comrades...he was wrong", whispered Mutt with a low voice. Indiana looked with apprehension into his blue eyes. He heard Marion and Ox calling them behind their position, shouting something, but Indiana didn´t undestand their words and he didn´t give a damn about it. For the first time in his life, the great archaeologist Indiana Jones was scared. Yes, he was very scared, because he didn´t want to loose the boy who was lying in his lap bleeding to death. He didn´t know what to do; all he know was that he couldn´t leave his son die and much less this way, so young, in the middle of nowhere and because of him. Mutt groaned in pain, taking out Indiana from his thoughts and he couldn´t avoid that a tear of powerlessness flowed down his cheek when he saw the pain reflected in his son´s eyes.

"WHY IN THE DAMN HELL DID YOU DO SOMETHING AS STUPID AS THAT!? WHY!? YOU ARE A FOOL, HE COULD HAVE SHOT YOU IN THE HEAD AND YOU WOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW! DON´T YOU HAVE ANY COMMON SENSE, DAMN IT?!", shouted Indiana to Mutt, hugging him, trying to hide the anguish he felt in that instant disguising it like anger. Mutt cried in pain and Indiana released him and laid him on the ground.

"I don´t know why I did it...it was instinctive, I suposse...I just wanted to protect you two...you are my parents after all...I guess it´s natural" said Mutt with a whisper. It was strange for Indiana to hear the voice of that annoying brat so weak, so far away...

"Don´t say nosense, you are the brat and we are the parents, protect you it´s our duty, not the other way round", answered him Indiana.

"I suposse that for once...I will do as you say...and I will go to the damn hell", whispered Mutt. Indiana looked at him, horrified.

"YOU WON´T DIE! DID YOU HEAR ME? YOU WON´T DIE! NOBODY WILL DIE HERE UNTIL I SAY SO, IS THAT CLEAR?", shouted Indiana.

"This time...I would try to obey you but...I don´t know if I'll can do it", said Mutt with a low voice. Indiana sighed and he took his chin, forcing him to look into his eyes.

"Listen to me very carefully, boy. You won´t die, I will cure you, trust me. If you don´t believe in your recovery, if you convince yourself that you won´t do it, then you will surely die. You have to believe, okay, kid? Do you undestand me?", told him Indiana, with an affectionate tone very unusual in him. Mutt nodded weakly. "Good boy. Marion, stop snivel and come here".

"YOU WILL BE GROUNDED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE AFTER THAT!", said Marion between tears, kneeling next to her son.

"Don´t tell him off now, Marion, it´s the least he need in this moment. Hold him tight. I need to look at his wound, he is bleeding too much", said Indiana and Marion nodded, holding her son by his shoulders. The once insensitive professor Jones tried to convince himself that he needed to calm down a little to prevent his hands from shaking if he wanted to help his son. He removed the boy´s jacket and tore his shirt apart to reach the wound and, when he saw it, he cursed in a low voice. The bullet had passed through his chest, thank God far away from his heart, but that didn´t mean that it couldn´t have broken a central artery or a vein (and, for the amount of blood that was flowing from his wound it was perfectly possible) or, even worse, it could have affect his lung and then he would drowned in his own blood to death long before he could bring him to any medical attention. Indiana refused to even think about that possibility while he tore apart the remainders of his own shirt and he began to bandage his chest tenderly, ignoring his cries of pain. "Don´t be a crybaby, child, it isn´t a very serious wound".

"Don´t try to lie to me, I am not stupid, even if you don´t believe it", said Mutt.

"You are not stupid, you are a smart ass, that´s always the problem", said Indiana, finishing banding his chest and he removed Mutt´s jacket away from him and used it to put pressure on his wound.

"As smart ass as his father", smiled Marion.

"I´m...I´m sorry", whispered Mutt, with a barely audible voice. He was finding difficult to breathe and Indiana noticed it. He looked into Mutt´s eyes and saw them wandering disoriented by the sorroundings, fighting to maintain the consciousness. Indiana hold his face in his hand, forcing Mutt to look directly at him.

"Mutt, listen to me. I know it hurts and that you feel very bad, but you have to stay awake as long as you can, ok? Don´t sleep", ordered him Indiana.

"Everything...is spinning...", muttered Mutt.

"So, look at my eyes, ok? Forget everything else, think that we are alone, here only are you and me, kid, fix your eyes on mine and hold on, ok? Everything will be ok, you will be ok, child", said Indiana, trying to transmit him a confidence that he didn´t feel.

"Sorry...", Mutt whispered again.

"Ey, ey, calm down, boy, you don´t have to be sorry for anything, what happened it´s not your fault. You was just trying to do what do you think was right, you didn´t do anything wrong. The only ones to blame for this situation are those cursed russians, but we gave them what they deserved so stop apologizing, ok?", Indiana told him, softly.

"I am not sorry for that...I´m sorry for haven´t been a good son for mom...I know that I made her suffer a lot...and I regret it", whispered Mutt. Indiana shook his head, feeling how hard was becoming for his child to breathe. "And I am sorry too...for haven´t been the son...that the great doctor Jones would have wanted...I really would have liked...not met you... as a failure..."

"Don´t say that, it´s not true! You are not a failure, I don´t think about you like that and I will kill anyone who dares to insinuate something like that!", shouted Indiana, but Mutt couldn´t hear him any longer. His breathing become almost non-existent, his eyes closed and his body became limp in his father arms. Indiana, panicking, hugged him tightly into his chest. "MUTT! WAKE UP! Don´t you dare to do this to me, don´t you dare to die, child, dammit, did you hear me? Open your eyes!".

"Indy! Is he...is he...?", said Marion with fear.

"NO! OF COURSE NOT, DON´T YOU DARE TO INSINUATE SOMETHING LIKE THAT!HE IS ALIVE! MY SON WILL LIVE, I ASSURE YOU!", shouted Indiana, panicking, rocking him in his lap and hugging him tightly. The pain he felt in that moment seemed unbearable, it appeared that this bullet had gone through his own heart. Why on earth was he so desesperate for that noisy brat? He was his son but he only was that for a few hours, it was impossible had taken so much affection in such a short time for anyone. But he love him, he couldn´t deny it. Simply, he couldn´t stand the the thought that, perhaps, he wouldn´t see him again, that he would not grow up, that he would never be happy. Was that the paternal instinct about which he had always heard and never believed? He didn´t know, but one thing was certain: he won´t let him die, he couldn´t let him die and, if that happen, he would follow him without hensitation. A life without shouting Mutt had become an idea very difficult to bear for him. The great Indiana Jones couldn´t avoid crying like a child holding his wounded son in his arms. Ox, seeing him plunged into the panic, left aside his own pain and approached to them. Indiana, thinking that he wanted to take Mutt away from his embrace, moved away from him instinctively, hugging Mutt even more tightly into his chest, like a lion protecting his cub.

"Calm down, Henry or you will hurt him even more", said Ox, trying to bring him back to reality. Indiana growled, but he slightly loosened his preassure on Mutt. Ox approached at them and put two fingers on the child´s neck. "He is alive, but his pulse is weak, we have to do something for him. If we stay here mourning his wounds, he will surely die".

"You are right, Ox", said Indiana, wipping aways his tears. "The child needs an urgent medical attention, the sooner we get where someone can give him it, the better".

"But we are in the middle of the damn Amazon, Indy! How can we get medical help for him here?", asked Marion.

"That´s why I said that the sooner we reach the civilization, the better. Well, some place civilized enough to take care of him, although the only quacks to which I would entrust his life are across the ocean, but, under this circumnstances, I resign myself with what we find", whispered Indiana. "It will get dark soon. We can´t begin our jouney now, we could get lost and, if that happens, it could be fatal for Mutt"

"So, what should we do?", asked Marion.

"For the moment, we should get down from here and go near to the water, we need to do him a proper cure and do a fire to boil some water, his wound could be infected if we allow contaminated water enters in it being him so weak. In addition, we need to give him heat; soon, the temperature will be lower than now and we have nothing to wrap him up, we could not allow him to cool down. Tomorrow, we will start the trip".

"How much it take to us to reach somewhere inhabited?"

"I don´t know, three days, maybe two if we are lucky and some of the cars that the russians left before descending off the cliff still work. If we don´t find a transport, I can´t calculate how much time".

"Three days!? Mutt could be dead by then!", shouted Marion.

"Then pray for any of the cars works, because we can´t do anything more for him", said Indiana, standing up and taking Mutt in his arms. "We should also give him some water to prevent dehydration and perhaps try to obligue him to eat a little to regain his strengh. But the most important thing we should do it´s stop his bleeding, so go".

* * *

"Come on, puppy, put a little of your part, I need you to help me", begged Indiana, trying to make Mutt drink some water from his hands. Indiana drop a little amount of water into his mouth and sighed relieved when he saw the kid swallowing. He came back to the river to take more water and returned to his side. He did the same thing but, this time, Mutt began to cough violently. When Indiana saw that, he ran to him and hugging him with force, preventing him for moving because of that coughing attack. "Calm dow,child, take it easy. If you continue coughing like that, you will start to bleeding a lot again. Try to breathe slowly, that´s it, very good boy".

He felt strange talking to that kid as if he was three years old. God, he didn´t even know if he could hear him, but he felt better if he talked to him. When they descended from the temple, Indiana had persuaded Marion and Ox to go in search of food. She refused, saying that she wanted to stay with her son, but Indiana had told her that they need food, that Ox couldn´t do much at his age and that he could protect Mutt much better than her if something threatened him, so, in the end, she decided to go. But that wasn´t why he wanted her away from them. He wanted to be alone with Mutt, he wanted him for himself. She had denied him for eighteen years, now it was his time to be alone with his son. When he saw Marion and Ox dissapear into the deep jungle, he launched himself towards Mutt and hugged him with all his force, leaving flow the tears of fear and frustration that he could hardly suppress in front of the others, sometimes unsucessfully. He whispered reassuring words into his ear crying, beggining to all the gods he knew for his son´s life. Every time he heard his heartbeat, he was afraid that the next never came, he was so pale, so weak...

"Please, Mutt, get better, get better, get better...", Indiana begged him. He move away from him with difficulty, wiping away his tears and tended him tenderly in the ground. He needed to make a fire and clean his wound with hot water, so he had to make a campfire as quickly as possible. He wrapped him in his own jacket and left him in a safe place under a tree. "I will back there in a minute, I won´t leave you alone, undestand?"

Indiana ran from side to side looking for wood to make the fire that weren´t too wet, a very complicated task in the middle of the Amazon, especially when he refused completely to move very far from Mutt. In any other moment, he would stop searching and would have refused to make a fire, but if his son needed a fire, no damned forest was going to stop him. He managed to find some dry branches under a rock that protected them for the humidity and ran again to Mutt, who didn´t move an inch from his position under the tree. He took his famous lighter from his pocket and tried to light up the wood.

"Come on, dammit, make fire, make it...", cursed Indiana trying to ignite the wood. Finally, he did it with a cry of joy and picked up his child. Indiana put him next to the fire to keep him warm and then he pulled out from the bag he still retained a metallic bowl that he had collected from the tomb of Orellana before leaving with the skull with a misterious coat of arms that he wanted to descipher later, he filled it up with water and put it in the center of the fire. "Let´s look at that wound, brat, and the best for you that the injury is better than I imagine, because if it is not, I...I will imagine some medieval torture that I can inflict to you. Your grandfather Henry was specialist in medieval history and I can examine his records until I find something I like, I assure you".

Indiana smiled bitterly to the memory of his father and looked to Mutt, thinking that he will never meet him. What would have thought the professor Henry Jones the first about his new and unknow grandson? Nothing good, he was sure of that; he would think that the child was a good for nothing boy and he will return him to his studies kicking his butt non-stoping if it was necessary. But he was sure that his father, in his own way, would love him; that damned brat was adorable, he had to admit that. And he look a lot like him; if his father loved him and he knew he did it, that little boy would have ended being his weakness as well. It was sad to him that Mutt would never meet his grandfather, because he will make sure that his child and his father won´t meet in the afterworld in a very long time.

"I will tell you anything you want about him, Mutt. I will tell you what happened to us when we went to search the Holy Grail together...yeah, together and with a couple or dozens of nazis too, and when we investigated the oringins of the Temple Knights, and so much other things...everything you like", said Indiana while he was removing the jacket from his chest and began to unwrapped his bandages that he had been improvised from the remaining of his own shirt covered in blood. He whispered at the sight of his wound: the shot was clean, but the bullet was still inside his body, so it was only a matter of time that it become infected and the fever will appear soon, but he was more worried about the fact that it didn´t stop bleeding yet but now it wasn´t much more than a trickle that ceased to be pure red, indicating that it was already producing an infection. Indiana cursed, submerging the bandages in the hot water and began to put preassure on his wound. Mutt moaned in his sleep.

"Thanks God, Mutt, at last I know now that you still can feel something. Stop complain or your mother will come here and you now perfectly well that is a big threat", said Indiana, still putting preassure in the sides of his wound until his blood flew again pure red. He caressed his son´s hair who was groaning in pain in his unconsciousness, trying to calm him a bit. "It´s done, pup. This is going to be even harder for you, but it doesn´t mind, right? You are a though boy, I already see you fighting against the russians, you could have defeated the Lenin army alone, you can´t be scared of your own father".

Indiana used Mutt´s jacket to catch the bowl without burning himself and left it to cool down slighty before took the now wet bandages again. He sighed deeply before turning towards Mutt again.

"This will hurt, pup", said Indiana with a low voice. He looked at his wound and then to the bandages, doubtful. He didn´t want to hurt him, but...it was necessary. "This will hurt me more than you, I assure you".

Collecting the last remainders of his lost courage, Indiana clenched his teeth and began to clean the wound with one of the hot bandages. Mutt screamed and began to writhe in pain on the ground, trying to get rid of the pain that gripped him but Indiana held him down, preventing him from moving while he was cleaning his wound. Over and over again, Indiana ignored his cries of pain while he was cleaning the blood and the dirt off his injury the very best he knew until the wound stopped bleeding and he was satisfied. Taking the rest of the bandages off from the bowl, he bandaged his chest tightly and lied him down again next to the campfire while he ws washing his hands in the river. He returned back to Mutt quickly and discovered him crying in his sleep, being a victim of pain and convulsions.

"Don´t cry, my child, don´t cry", whispered Indiana, sitting at his side next to the fire and then he sit him in his lap embracing him, putting the child´s head into his chest. Mutt couldn´t hear him in his unconsciousness, he only cried disconsolately, victim of his pain and his fears. Indiana was unable to comfort him and that was breaking his heart, knowing that he was suffering and he couldn´t help him. Was that being a father, feel your son´s suffering as his own? Indiana didn´t know, the only things he felt was rage and powerlessness, but very soon he also feel his own tears mixing up with his son´s ones, that was flowing from his eyes non-stopping. Indiana kissed him in the forehead and caressed his hair while he was rocking his child. "Don´t worry, my pup, everything is over now, I am with you this time and I am going to take care of you, I won´t leave you until you get well, I promise you, but stop crying, please".

"Indy! I heard Mutt´s screams! What happened?", shouted Marion from the denseness of the jungle, running towards them. "Indiana! What happened to him? Tell me!".

"Why you didn´t tell me, Marion?", asked Indiana between tears, still rocking Mutt tightly on his chest. Marion looking at him worried, without undestand his words. "Why you kept him away from me?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

**Chapter two**

"Why you didn´t tell me, Marion? Why you didn´t tell me I have a son?", asked her Indiana, still rocking Mutt and caressing his hair. Marion ignored his words and ran over his son.

"Jones, he is crying! Why was he screaming before? I swear to you, Jones, if you don´t tell me what´s happening to my son, I..."

"Our son! Don´t you dare to say that he is simply your son because Mutt is both, although you carried all his life denying it!", shouted Indiana to her. Marion looked at him, astonished. Neither in their worst moments together Indiana Jones had dared to shout to her, for many reasons he could have to do so. Looking at him carefully, she had to admit that she had never seen so desperate and defeated the almighty Indiana Jones. In fact, she had never seen him cry, much less as discosolately as he was doing in that moment, so she decided to ignore the tone of his words and sat by his side in the ground.

"What happened to him, Indy?", asked Marion again, trying to remain calm and wiping away the tears from Mutt´s cheeks.

"Nothing, he is as well as he can be in his state. I cleaned his wound with boiling water and it hurts like hell, I can assure you, I have received more than one shot in my life, I am speaking from experience. He is unconscious, but we don´t know how deep his unconsciousness is. If it isn´t very deep, he may even be having hallucinations, he could be scared and thinking he is alone in the middle of his pain. That´s why he is crying. And I can´t calm him down, dammit!", growled Indiana, caressing Mutt again.

"Yes, you can calm him down, Indy. You see? Mutt is not crying anymore", said Marion to him like she was talking to a three years old child. "He is already calmed. Maybe it will be better that you let him lying in the ground next to the fire, I don´t think that position is adequate for his wound".

"No! I want him to know that I am at his side, that I am not going to leave him alone and, in this very moment, he can only know it by intuition, in the most primitive way possible because he has lost his forms of human undestanding: perhaps he can feel my skin on his own, hear the beating of my heart, acknowledge my presence encouraging him. I don´t want him to feel alone; now I am with him", said Indiana. Marion smiled at him.

"He fit perfectly in your arms", said her, wiping away Indy´s tears as she did before with his son´s.

"Why you didn´t tell me?", asked Indiana again. Marion sighed.

"Think about it rationally, Indy. What do you expect? I discovered that I was pregnant with Mutt one week after you left me, when I was still calling the people we invited to our weeding to tell them that the soon to be husband was missing and there will be no weedding at all. What was I supossed to do except raise my son by myself as best as I could?".

"You could have said it to me!", shouted Indiana.

"I didn´t know where you were, it seemed that you disappeared from the face of the Earth!", replied Marion.

"I sent you a letter, you could easily have found out where I was and inform me that I had a baby!".

"You sent it a year after you left me, when your child already born and I was married to another man, it no longer made sense that you knew it!".

"How can you say anything like that? How would it not make sense? Did you never think that although you rebuilt your life with another man I deserved to know that I had a son anywhere that was growing without me?"

"You abandoned him too when you left me at the foot of the altar!"

"That accusation isn´t fair, Marion, if I had known you were pregnant, a lot of things have changed!".

"I didn´t know I was expecting before you left me and, after that, I promised myself that I would never tell Mutt the truth because I was sure that he would go to look for you and I didn´t want see my son suffering by your rejection!"

"Did you really think I was going to reject my own child? Is that the opinion you have about me? I can´t believe it!".

"How I wasn´t going to think like that, Indy? Tell me! Do you remember the unpleasant argument that we had the night before you left me, the reason why you abandoned me? Because I remember it very well", said Marion, bitterly. Indiana shut his eyes and sighed. Yes, he remembered perfectly well that conversation, the discussion that sealed his fate and he couldn´t avoid embracing Mutt harder against his chest. That gesture didn´t pass unnoticed to Marion. "I see that you remember it as well".

"Yes, perfectly. We were talking about having children", said Indiana with a low voice.

"Correction, we were arguing about having children, because I wanted to have them soon and you said that you would never have children, that you didn´t want them, that them would become a curse for our relationship and that if someday I was pregnant it would be a disgrace for our marriage. You said that and a lot of more things on the subject and that morning when I awaked you didn´t was at my side anymore, how I wouldn´t think that you were going to reject Mutt after all you said?"

"I know perfectly well what I said that night, but it seems that you never wondered why I didn´t want having children so bad".

"It was sufficiently clear in our conversation that you thought that our children would be a hindrance for you, for your pursue of that historical riddles that removed you away from reality and for our relationship".

"That´s not true! It wasn´t that. Those never were the true reasons because I didn´t want to have children. I always feared that at some point, I would become like my father and that some people who had died more than five hundred ago were more important than my own son, but that was never the reason because I always refused to have them. I...I was scared. That´s why".

"You was scared of the responsability of being a father? I always knew that you are a coward in sentimental matters, but this is too much..."

"No! The responsability wasn´t what I was scared about! The problem is I am the damn archaeologist Indiana Jones, chased day after day by countless enemies who always try to kidnap, blackmail and torture me to make me found treasures or reveal them secrets, I knew perfectly well that if someday I formed a family they probably would be attacked, injured or even killed before my own eyes to make me do whatever they want and I would do it for my family´s safety without any doubt! I knew that you could defend yourself if something happened, but the baby, the defenseless child we could have together would be in constant danger of dying because of my past, I didn´t want to bring a child to this world to have to see him suffering at the hands of my enemies! I didn´t want to have a son who I had to see dying!", said Indiana, hugging Mutt.

"But, Indy, that wasn´t have to happen...", began to say Marion, but Indiana interrupted him.

"Yes, sooner or later that was going to happen! Even if I would abandoned archaeology and I taught for living, my past would always be a constant shadow upon our existence that could threat the lives of our children! Look what happened now! The communists did not even know that Mutt was my son and, in spite of that fact, they used Ox and you to make him come to look for me and now he is almost dead in the middle of the damn jungle! How I wasn´t going to think about it? If he hadn´t been my son, if you two hadn´t been associated with me, this probably have never happened and now Mutt would be safe in his bed or having fun with his friends instead of been caught in the middle of the damn Amazon with a bullet in his chest!"

"If you hadn´t appeared in our lives, Mutt didn´t even born, so stop blaming yourself of what happened to our son!", shouted Marion to him. Indiana shook his head. "Why you didn´t tell me this way? So much things would have changed...".

"No, Marion. You would have tried to convince me that nothing would have to happen, that my fears were unfounded. I know that you would finally convince me and then you would blame me when we had to heal our son´s wounds or hold his corpse in our arms, because you would know, as well as I, that it would be my only fault! But everything would have changed for me if I had known that Mutt already existed, that I had a son forming inside of you, because I was already a father; protect that damned brat would have been my life and I am sure he would always do whatever he wants of me, he would be the most spoiled brat in the world. And he will be from now on. I don´t want him out of my sight anymore; even when he marries he will remain with me, he will be always at my side, where I can always protect him if something happens. I will never leave him, I swear", said Indiana with a complete seriousness. Marion smiled.

"I never imagined that you are an overprotective father".

"Neither than I. I am confused, I don´t know what´s happening to me. I never felt this way, never someone that I know for such a little time has been able to have so much influence on me like him. Simply, I don´t want him to suffer never again; I want to protect him, love him, spoil him, make him happy...I feel that I would be able to do anything for him and that´s something strange for me. I am not used to be so attached to anyone...Marion, I don´t know why I feel this way...".

"The explanation is very simple, my dear Indy...that´s being a father. Your heart recognizes him like something as yours as your own blood and your soul will be linked to his forever. Probably you has loved him for long before you could guess the truth; we know each other very well, Indy, and I know that if he had been anyone else, you would have left him in the Unites States to free yourself from the burden he mean for you, but, for some reason, you wanted to protect him and you knew that you only could do it if he was with you, so you let him go with you. Your soul recognized him as yours long before your mind, and I am sure that it was the same for Mutt because I can assure you that he doesn´t trust anybody. The love of a father can´t be explained with words; it can only be felt. And right now you are discovering its wonders".

"Marion, I don´t know how to be a father, much less a good one".

"Indy, being a father is something that nobody can´t teach or learn; you will be doing it better with practise. No child as the same as other and no father is similar to another one. You love Mutt, you can´t hide it and you want the best for him, that´s more than enough. The rest will be ok with time".

"No, he doesn´t accept me, you heard what he said before".

"He is only confused; everything has gone too fast for him, two days ago he had no father at all and now he suddenly discovered that he has one whom he had never heard a word about that really wants to take care of him, that´s much more that any teenager can take without explode, especially one as stubborn and with a strong character as Mutt. In addition, if you think about it properly, he was arguing with me, if you wouldn´t have taken part in our fight he wouldn´t have said anything to you, he knows it isn´t your fault".

"In a way, I suppose he was right. After all, Colin Williams was the only father he knew, he raised him and I am only a stranger. I can´t compete with a lifetime of respect and devotion towards him".

"That´s a stupidity, Jones, he never had a father", said Marion, bitterly. Indiana looked at her, without understand her words. "He doesn´t remember Colin. He is only seventeen and Colin left to the war when our kid hadn´t come to celebrate his first birthday and neither of us saw him again, it´s impossible for Mutt even remember his face, much less a gesture or a word of love from him. He only said that probably because he wanted you shut up and leave us alone, because he isn´t ready yet to accept that a person who barely knows has appeared in his live to fill a gap that was always empty. You don´t know how to be a father, well, he doesn´t know how to be a son for a man, but remember that, in spite of everything he could say, he is now wounded for save your life; not for saving me, or Ox, but you, because that gun was pointing at you and Mutt risked his life to save yours, he was aware of what he was risking getting that bullet in your place, if you don´t think that´s a sign of love, you are much more stupid than I thought. He didn´t want to loose a father he didn´t know again, even a strange one or one that thinks he is stupid brat. Telling you that about Colin he only wanted annoy you, nothing more, but the things you said before about him don´t help at all to improve your relationship with your son, Jones".

"I don´t think that about him, it never was what I thought he is! He got on my nerves, that´s all... in that moment, I only wanted to hurt him".

"He is seventeen, drive his parents mad is the speciality of all the teenagers of the world! But if you really wanted to hurt him, you did a perfect job. You hit the target, you know".

"Don´t tell me that, Marion, not in a moment like this, I only said that in a moment of pressure, I don´t want him to believe, under any circumstances, that I really think about him like that way because it´s not true, much less now that he is seriously injuried. Marion, if he dies and much more believing that, I couldn´t stand it".

"He isn´t going to die, you said it yourself, you won´t let your child die. In addition, he is strong, like his father, that bullet isn´t enough to kill the great Indiana Jones´son", said Marion, trying to transmit him her confidence.

"Why did my words hurt him so much? I saw in his eyes, in his soul that it was not a simple offense, that I really hurt him. Why does he think he is a failure? He isn´t a failure at all", asked Indiana. Marion sighed.

"It´s difficult to explain. I think he always thought that he didn´t full the expectations that the society and I had for him. He always tried to do what I wanted from him, he really tried, I know it, but his character has always been to strong and his thirst for adventures too big to adapt himself to the established society, so he became a rebel and...he always thought that he failed me ant the best for him was to be alone; this way, he couldn´t be hurt and he couldn´t fail anyone else".

"Alone? Doesn´t he have any friends or a group? That´s strange. As much as admit it could cost me, the brat is absolutely adorable", said Indiana. Marion laughed.

"Smells of an excessive fatherly adoration here", laughed Marion. Indiana growled.

"Don´t make fun of me and ask my question".

"Okay. When Colin and I married, I already had Mutt and we moved to the house that Colin had in New York for a long time in a quite luxurious neighborhood and...you know how the people are. They never saw me with Colin before our marriage and they soon found out that Mutt wasn´t the son of Colin, but...", Marion said, sighing, reluctant to say the next word, "...a bastard and that made me a whore. Rumors quickly extended and Mutt and I soon became a social outcasts and, although Colin always told everyone that Mutt was his son, there wasn´t difficult for someone who have children for his or her own to guess that he wasn´t his father for the way he treated Mutt".

"He didn´t dare to mistreat him, didn´t he? Because if he laid one finger on my son, I swear I will go to the afterworld to kill him again with my bare hands!", shouted Indiana.

"Of course not! Do you think I would have allowed it? Colin loved Mutt dearly, that was undeniable, but as a nephew, as a little brother perhaps, but he could never love him like something that he wasn´t...like his son. The adoration, the afection that flows from a father when he is with his child, that you can see in his eyes everytime he is with him or even talk about him, that I see in you at this very moment when you are holding your baby, was something that Colin never have when Mutt was around. In addition, he always wanted to have his own son and I knew very well that this new baby would displace Mutt in Colin´s care and treatment in the moment he or she born; Colin could never be a father for our son. Nevertheless, I got pregnant a few months after the birth of Mutt, but I had a miscarriage. I remember very well Colin´s face of desolation when I told him what happened; he tried to appear calm, but I knew that he was shattering inside. When he left the room, he met Mutt who was beggining to crawl around the house and Colin look at him in a rage and told him "Why my child died before his birth and you are still alive?" Then, he left and Mutt began to cry, but no like babies usually do, wailing loudly, but, simply, the tears rolled off his cheeks in silence, like he was an adult and he would have understood the meaning of his words. Of course, he couldn´t, but I am sure he could feel the rejection of the man who he thought was his father", Marion remembered, averting her gaze away from Indiana.

"How could he say something like that to a baby!? Damn bastard son of a...", cursed Indiana, but Marion stopped him.

"Oh, Jones, stop blaspheming, he was just upset! Furthermore, he left to the war two weeks after that and he never saw Mutt again. We inherited his house and all his money after his death, but at times of shortage like was that I couldn´t buy a house anywhere else far away from that neighborhood where my son and I were treated as a plague. My job and the fact that I am very far to be the perfect housewife didn´t help to change their mind about us and a woman as me is still very bad considerate in our society, so..."

"What is your job?", asked Indiana.

"You don´t guess it, Jones? With the money Colin left us I started a bar with which Mutt and I could live without financial difficulties. In a time of war and economic recession seems that there is always enough money to get some way out from reality. But that job demanded me a lot of time, so when Colin left to the war I called Ox by my side to help me to take care of Mutt. Ox happily took the role of grandfather but you know him, Ox always forgots the outer world, including Mutt, when a good book takes his attetion, so Mutt is acostumed to spend a lot of time alone. When his time to go to the school came, the parents of the children that went with him taught them to reject Mutt as a bastard as the adults did with me and he soon began to get into troubles and failed. Nothing that I did was enough to control him and he, because of the rejection of society gradually isolate himself and became even more rebellious than he already was, thinking that grown away from the people was the only way to not got hurt by the world. He can´t trust in people easily", said Marion, caressing his son´s hair. "And I can´t blame him for it".

"With all this, did he never supect anything?"

"Of course yes. He knew very well the rumors, but I always denied it every time he asked me about his father, telling him that the rumors weren´t true and the people who said otherwise were only gossips, so he had no choice but resign himself with my version. For many reasons, I believe that Mutt always knew that Colin Williams wasn´t his real father, but that didn´t change the reality that, in practice, he was an orphan. I knew that, if he had know about your existence, he would have caught his bike and he would arrived to your house without a word and you would have met your newfound son on the mat when you would opened the door to go to work".

"It wasn´t less shocking to discover his existence when we were sinking into the sand and waiting for death. And I want to know in this instant where is that damn neighborhood of yours, I have to go there to put a few bombs to make these bastard receive what they deserve for treat you two that way".

"Men! You always fix everything with violence! What the point is to kill them now, when the damage is already done?", asked Marion.

"No one, but I would feel much better that way and I am sure that Mutt too", said Indiana. Marion snorted, indignant. "That´s why he left school, because they rejected him?"

"In part; social relationships has never been his strong point and he hated having to be tied eight hours a day five days a week with a bunch of stranges with whom he never got along, but also because he has a constant need to challenge the authority. I suppose that was inevitable, he carry it in his blood", said Marion, looking significantly at Indiana.

"Don´t look at me, Marion, you have never been a saint when the behavior is concerned. Mutt have to be a rebel for obligation being our son".

"Touche. Mutt is very intelligent, almost gifted; he usually devored any book that falls in his hands and a lot of times he knew much more than these bored teachers who tried to control him, so he always was mortally bored in school. All this together made him tired of school and as soon as he could, he left it, but he has never been an stupid or an ignorant boy; he is specially gifted to literature: when he was ten, he already read and understood Shakespeare´s plays and poems perfectly; he also read a lot of philosophy; Kant has no secrets for him, although he likes much more classic philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle, and he also knows a lot of languages. He knew french and italian, he learned them in school and he learned chinese and japanese by himself. When he began to study them by himself, I didn´t think he could succeed, until one day when we were shopping, we bumped in a poor chinese turist who was lost and didn´t know a word in english and Mutt began to talk to him in a perfect chinese and gave him the directions he needed. He was thirteen or fourteen by then and I wouldn´t have believed it if I hadn´t seen it. He left me stunned and I remember that I took him by the hand and bought him all the books about China or in chinese that I found. I was very proud of him that day".

"I would never have imagined it. He doesn´t seems the boy who carries a Ovid´s book in his backpack".

"Well, he is, although he truly prefers the Heroides to the Metamorphoses, but you know much more about classic poets than me. I suposse he inherited it from his father".

"No, I think he inherited it from his grandfather, the great Henry Jones Senior".

"Ah, yes. How is he?".

"Dead", answered Indiana simply.

"Oh, Indy, I am very sorry!", apologized Marion. Indiana refused.

"It isn´t your fault, you didn´t know anything about it. I suposse it was his moment. You know very well that my father and I never really got along easily; I always thought that his books were much more important for him than me but, in his last years we improved our relationship a lot...but now, I regret that him and Mutt will never meet..."

"If I had known that you would take charge of Mutt, I would have told you at the right time".

"This story is filled with perhaps, Marion. We both made a lot of mistakes, but the most damaged by them was Mutt".

"Will you forgive me someday?", asked Marion.

"I left you, I can´t blame you for hide him from me. But I will forgive you with one condition".

"Which one?"

"I want Mutt to be a Jones. No son of mine will bear another man´s surname", said Indiana. Marion laughed.

"Of course, it´s your right. I am sure that Mutt will bear the Jones´ surname proudly. He can try to give the impression of being a strong and hardened adult, but he is actually only a child who just want a little afection. If you offers that to him, he will love and adore you all his life. He is like a little dog, scared that someone could hurt him again; be patient with him and show him your love and he will love your dearly, as his father you are; but don´t expect that he becomes a younger version of you one day; he has too character for that".

"I hope that, but for all my life, not his; he will survive me, I am sure of that", said Indiana, relieved. "He is a great boy. You did a good job with him, Marion. From now on, I will be always with him and I promise that if someone threatens him for being my son, I will protect him with my life, if it´s necessary".

"Do you really think that he is only threatened for being at your side, for being your son? He will be much more protected if you are with him that if you are away! I can´t protect him as well as you, even if I tried and he is still a kid, he doesn´t know anything about life, without you he always was defenceless".

"Of course that´s true, but I won´t renounce my son now, even if he has to sleep in his parents´ bed for the rest of his life", said Indiana. Marion looked at him with a sexy smile. "Ok, in his parents´ room. That´s will be enough".

"Do you forget who was his grandfather? Do you forget who was twenty four hours a day with us? His grandfather was the great Abner Ravenhood and Harold Oxley was every day with him, they were archaeologists as full of secrets as you, it was only a matter of time that some crazy treasure hunter came to our house looking for a mysterious artefact for which he was ready to hurt Mutt and if they come back in the future, he will be much more helpless if you aren´t with him".

"You are speaking of facts, don´t you, Marion? Something happened, right? Something very important", said Indiana. Marion nodded.

"Yes. They came for Ox when he was with Mutt and..."

"They? Who were they?"

"Nazis. It was december, 1944. Mutt was only five years old, Colin have died long time before and the nazis were losing the war. They needed a miracle to win it. And they thought that Ox had the key to that miracle", said Marion, without knowing how continue with her story. "I wasn´t in the city by then, I had to resolve some bar´s issues and I left Mutt with Ox, like always. That´s when that...monsters came, attacked our house and kidnapped Ox. They wanted something from Ox, I don´t know what and he never told me, I suposse that they were looking for some stupid artefact or a map to achieve a unknown myth that they thought he had, I don´t know and I don´t care. What I know is that night they attacked Ox, tied him in a chair and began to beat him to make him tell them what they wanted to hear. Ox refused, of course, but he was unable to prevent screaming in pain and...woke Mutt, who was sleeping in his room. Our child saw these men attack his "grandpa" and, intead of hiding, he tried to free him. Son of Indiana Jones, without doubt. The Nazis caught him at once, of course...and they saw in him a much better method of pressure for make Ox tell them what they wanted to hear...".

"Didn´t they dare to...!", growled Indiana, hugging Mutt even tightly again his chest.

"We have to be grateful that our son is still alive after that night. When they took our child, Ox quickly agreed to tell them everything they wanted to know in order to prevent them for hurting Mutt, but that didn´t stop them. Moreover, that wasn´t all; who led the Nazis to my house was a good friend of Ox, one of the few friends who know the true origins of Mutt, who his true father was. He knew that Mutt is your son and then, the Nazis also knew it. And they used it against our child. They told him that he was the son of the "archaeologist", and when Mutt replied that his father was a militar pilot and was dead...God, these damn Nazis surely licked they lips when they realized that Mutt didn´t know the truth and they could play with his mind. They beat him without stop...while they was telling that Ox and me lied to him, that he actually had a father alive somewhere but he didn´t love him and he wasn´t going to save him from his torture because he was a failure...for God´s sake, he was five, he was knee-high to a grasshoper! But that didn´t stop them, neither his tears or the Ox´s shouts, beggining them to release him but they didn´t and, when they got tired, they left with the information they wanted. They left Ox tied to the chair and Mutt lying on the floor bleeding to death in the midst of december...and nobody helped them until I arrived to the house".

"How much time...?", asked Indiana, with a lump in his throat.

"Three days", said Marion.

"Oh my God", whispered Indiana, but Marion didn´t stop.

"I found him half dead on the floor in a pool of blood, unconscious, dehydrated and half frozen. When he awoke two days later in a hospital in which I was told that his chances of survival were almost inexistent, the first thing he asked me was if that people had told him the truth, if his father was actually alive and he didn´t love him because he was a failure. I told him that the nazis lied and he pretended to forgot what happened that night, but I know that he didn´t and that the shadows of these damned people threatened him in his nightmares since that day. Maybe not the pain, not the fear, but the loneliness, the feeling of not being wanted, the idea that the one he missed him for his absence existed but he didn´t love him, that he wasn´t going to save him because he was a failure. That day had a heavy influence in his behaviour, not only for the pain that the Nazis caused him, but also because was Ox´s friends who betrayed us, so that still distanced him more from the society he despises and in which he see potential enemies and learn to defend himself became his great obsession, so that if they returned to threat Ox or me, he could protect us or, at least, not to be a burden for us, he wanted to be brave with only five years old, but after that day he seemed to mature a few years all of a sudden. In that moment, I know I failed as a mother, I couldn´t make him feel safe and secure and I think he still feels that he has to be strong, that he can´t have any weakness because if he falls, nobody will be there to protect him. In that moment, I wished so much that you could have been with him, you could have make him feel safe, protected, you could have stopped them and prevented that bastards from touching him...but you weren´t with him. It was when he picked the name of Mutt, his dog... the nazis killed him that night, when he tried to defend the child from them without success and he told me he took his name because he would like to be as brave as Mutt was that night, because the dog knew that he couldn´t defeat these men but he faced them without doubt. It was heartbreaking to hear a child so young talking that way; what happened almost marked his life and I know he never forgot it...I didn´t think about that night in years and I thought he didn´t do it either. Maybe...that´s why your words hurt him so much... because that was what they said to him that night...that his father abandoned him because he was a failure...that his true father, the "archaeologist", didn´t love him because he didn´t worth it. Maybe now, after your words, he thought that everything they told him that night twelve years ago its true", whispered Marion, looking at Indiana for the first time in all his account and he was crying again hugging Mutt with all his force. "Indy, don´t cry, please, you doesn´t know..."

"I´m sorry, pup", Indiana told Mutt, kissing him in the forehead and hugging him, never letting him go. "I never had to say something like that to you, never, forgive me, please...".

"Indy, you didn´t know what happened that night, it´s not your fault...", said Marion, trying to comfort him, but Indiana ignored her.

"You will never be alone anymore, my puppy, I will protect you from anything, I never allow that something like that could happen to you again, I promise", said Indiana to his son. Marion, despite the circumstances, chuckled.

"Pup? You called him puppy?", Marion asked. Indiana nodded, trying to collect himself again.

"Yeah; I named myself Indiana for a dog, Mutt´s name can only have a very similar origin, so he is my pup", said him, caressing his son´s cheek.

"It seems that you have thought a lot about that".

"No; I had no time to think about it very much. It just appeared in my mind shortly after you told me he is my son and I think that´s the perfect nickname for him... I think that a nickname like that is a sign of affection...My father never was affectionate towards me, but never, except when he was very angry with me, he called my Henry...I always was Junior for him, although Henry is my real name".

"You absolutely hated that nickname, you detest Junior´s name with all your strength!".

"I know but Junior was horrible, pup is cute...".

"He will be so mad when he woke up! He will be much more embarrased than when I called muffin when he was little!", laughed Marion.

"Muffin? No wonder he was embarrased, that´s awful. Did you want to traumatize our son?".

"Oh, Indy, you are so cute! I would have naver think about you in that paternalist way!".

"Neither than I. To close the previous matter", said Indy, feeling the tears returning to his eyes to the memory of what his son had to suffer that day at Nazis´hands. "Doesn´t he forgot what said the Nazis? Does he always believe it?".

"I think so. I already told you that there was so much time since the last time we spoke about what happened, but I know he discovered the truth that night. I denied him any information that could lead him to you and Ox did the same thing, but I know that him didn´t believe us anymore, although he didn´t tell us openly...I remember a day, two years after that night...when Mutt was seven...he and I had a great argument. I don´t remember why the discussion was about...I guess it was for his grades or for any fight he was involved in, I don´t know but, while we were fighting he threatened me, saying that he would leave and I would never see him again. I thought that it was a tantrum and I punished him in his room without dinner but, when I went later to his room to talk to him calmer...he wasn´t there! He ran away, he escaped through his window! I almost had a heart attack when I saw that he wasn´t there, it was the middle of the night and my seven years old baby was God knew where, alone, in the middle of February! I called Ox and we immediately began to look for him, but we couldn´t find him...I was afraid that something could had happened to him, an accident or that someone like that Nazis could have kidnapped him or...until Ox and I found him nearly frozen refugee under a monument to the memory of the fallen in the war with a letter in his hand, where he wrote "To my true father, the archaeologist". He remembered what they said to him, and he went away, looking for you, without knowing anything about you, even your name, in the middle of the winter. He got sick, of course, with a severe case of pneumonia and I remember myself reading the note he wrote to you. In it, he asked you why you weren´t with him, that he felt alone and missed you a lot and he promised he would be a good child if you came back with us... as if that could fix everything, my poor boy, he was so young, so innocent...", Marion said, smiling. "That day I gave in. I told myself that I couldn´t bear anymore Mutt´suffering because of the absence of father who didn´t know about him, who never had the chace to decide if he wanted to be in our son´s life or not... and I called you to the college. Your secretary told me that you were in Europe in some crazy new adventure and that she didn´t know when you came back. I left her my number and asked her to tell you that I needed speak to you urgently. But you never called me back and the life continued its course after that. After so many years of lies, it was easier to remain silent that deal with the reproaches that Mutt and you would do to me in the moment when you would have known the truth and I never tried to contact you again, thinking that your adventures would always be more important than your own child. I know that Mutt didn´t remember that day, but I do...it is the great symbol of my guilt to deprieve my child of the opportunity to know his father. I condemned him to a childhood without a father that, I know it now, adores him and I don´t believe he could forgive me one day, but it seemed the right thing to do by then".

"He will never be without a father again, Marion, I will always watch over him, I promise you, and I will prevent him from trouble...or at least I will try...He is a Jones, after all...a lot of times he doesn´t look for troubles...they find him".

"Know that you support him will be more than enough. How do you feel rocking your son for the first time in your arms, although he is almost an adult?"

"It is..an indescribable feeling...simple and marvelously indescribable. I don´t think that I could go back to continue with my life without him. And that makes me feel completely vulnerable, dammit, I think I had never cried as much as today in my whole life", sighed Indiana. Marion smiled.

"Get used to it, daddy, because I can assure you that, since the very moment in which you know you have a child, you could never return to sleep pacefully a whole night again; you will be always worried about him, thinking if he is sleeping well in the next room or if he is afraid or worried about anything, but I wouldn´t change it for nothing".

"I wouldn´t change this feeling either, I must admit it", smiled Indiana.

"Indy, regarding Mutt...you don´t have to take charge of me because you want to stay with him. We will move next to your house if you want, I have denied him to you too much time to don´t do everything I can to make possible that you two could regain the lost time, but you don´t have to come back with me just for him...we will be an unorthodox family, as we have always been, but Mutt will have a mother and a father at last, there is no need that you...", continued Marion, but Indiana silenced her putting a finger on her lips.

"Marion, I would do almost anything for Mutt...but lie to you again is one of the few that I wouldn´t do, unless he run the risk of being painfully murdered by you for some prank, but that would be a white lie", laughed Indiana, but he silenced Marion again when she tried to reply him. "What I am trying to say is that if you accept me again after so many years I won´t only try to be the best father I can for Mutt...but also the best partner possible for you, because there wasn´t a single day in these eighteen years when I didn´t regret the decision I made. It isn´t just for our son, although he is a very pleasant bonus, but because I love you and I want to be with you. Marion, would you accept me again?"

"Oh, Jones!", she shouted, flinging herself into his arms and kissing him with force while Indiana was trying to protect Mutt from his sudden burst of affection. "How a conceited man as irresponsible as you can be so adorable?"

"Is that a yes?", asked him. Marion kissed him again on the lips.

"Yes, that´s a yes. But with one condition: we will marry as soon as we reach the civilization. This time, I won´t let you run away from me".

"Done, but only when Mutt gets well, he has to be our best man; after that, we will marry in the moment you want, future Mrs. Jones", said Indiana. Marion nodded.

"Deal, perpetual slave of Marion Ravenwood", laughed Marion. He leaned to kiss her again when Mutt did a sudden movement that attracted the attention of they both. "Indy, he is shivering. How is that possible? We are roasting in this damn jungle".

"Shit, I hoped that it didn´t arrive so soon", cursed Indiana, placing a hand on his son´s forehead.

"What?"

"Fever. He is cold because he has fever and it is a quite high, we must lower it. Marion, undress him please", said Indiana, leaving Mutt carefully on the ground. Marion removed his jacket, boots, socks and trousers, leaving him only with his bandages and underwear, while Indiana was leaving his hat, his whimp and his belt next to Marion.

"What are you doing?", asked Marion. Indiana picked up his son in his arms and went away towards the river.

"I have to cool him down as soon as possible, he won´t be able to stand a trip of three days if he continues getting worse at this pace!", said Indiana, entering in the river and kneeling down in the water, holding him against his chest until only Mutt´s head was out of the river. Mutt closed his arms instinctively around his father´s neck and Indiana scooped water in his hand and began to throw it over his forehead and his face with his free hand. "Come on, pup, react! I know that you are stronger than all this, you have to hold on, please! Please, my son, wake up!"

Indiana continued murmuring reassuring words until he felt his son´s skin cooling down slighty. Then Indiana, while he was caressing his son´s cheeks, Mutt began to open his eyes for the first time in several hours and he thought that he would begin to cry again, this time of happiness.

"Old man?", whispered Mutt, very confused. Indiana smiled and caressed his face, trying to give him security.

"Hello down there, puppy".

Well, another chapter here. Sorry again for my grammatical mistakes, I am trying to do my best but I can only improve with practise. Thank you for your reviews! Until the next time!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

**Chapter three**

"Old man? It´s you?", asked Mutt, very disoriented. He felt very dizzy and confused; everything around him was blurred and he wasn´t even able to distinguish clearly the features of the one who was holding him, but he knew was him. He felt his strong arms around him, those that he couldn´t believe that beloged to a boring professor of archaeology the first time he saw him, holding him safely against his hard chest; he heard his voice, although he didn´t undestand his words, they sounded reasurring and kind, and he felt his caresses in his hair and in his cheeks conforting him. He felt safe in his arms, with a confidence that he haven´t felt since he was a child. But, as his dizziness was disappearing and his senses slowly won the game to his instincts, he had the need to verify that what his soul already knew was real and that were the arms of his father who kept him afloat wherever they were. His eyes still couldn´t see his face, so he raised his hand to his saviour´s head, seeking a confirmation for his suspicions and he smiled when he recognized Indiana´s rough beard rubbing his hand against his father´s cheek.

"Yes, puppy, it´s me", said Indiana, enjoying for a moment the caresses that his son was giving him, feeling his hand wandering doubtful for his beard and his hair, but he was unable to suppress an instinct of concern, looking that his son could barely recognize him.

"Where...where is your hat?", asked Mutt, running his fingers through his father´s grey hair. Indiana chuckled about his pup´s statement while he caught his son´s hand that was wondering through his hair and linked his fingers with his own.

"I left it behind. You need me", answered Indiana.

"It...it is a true honour, old man", laughed Mutt.

"You can bet...", said Indiana, smiling. Mutt couldn´t return him that smile when the cold and the pain welcomed him to the full consciousness. Mutt let escape a cry of pain and hugged Indiana, searching a way to relieve the unbearable pain that threatened to return him again to the mists of darkness. Indiana hugged him back, trying with all his might to protect his son from the suffering that, unfortunately for the great archaeologist, he couldn´t pass in his child´s place.

"Easy, easy, little one, breathe slowly...", told him Indiana, trying to soothe him. "The pain, although it is difficult to overcome, is good, it means you are alive and with me, undestand? You have to be strong, you have to hold on".

"That´s easy for you to say...", whispered Mutt, surpressing another moan when a new wave of pain assaulted his body. He instinctively took refuge in his father´s neck and he felt Indiana´s muscles tensed under his skin, while he was rubbing circles in his son´s back trying to reassure him.

"Mutt, I assure you that I would take your place willingly in this very moment if I could. I hate see you in pain, believe me", told him Indiana, hugging him. Mutt looked at him while he was fighting against his pain and the totally honest eyes of his father caused him a strange but wonderful feeling of affection. "How do yo feel?"

"Wet", said Mutt. Indiana laughed.

"You never loose the irony, don´t you, boy? Looks and brains..."

"No. So...in what problem are we involved right now to be here?".

"In no one more than those we already have. You have a lot of fever and I had to lower it. Now, you are better or, at last, conscious, that´s an improvement".

"If you say so...and, as you had to lower it, you decided do it rudely and get us both in a river, right?", asked Mutt. Indiana rolled his eyes and resisted the urgency of teach some manners to his conceited son reminding himself that he was injuried and in pain. He could wait until later.

"Look, brat, I don´t know what do you think I should have done, because I must remind you that we are in the middle of the damn Amazon and here there aren´t any antibiotics or painkillers that I can give you so, if you have a better idea, I would love to hear it", said Indiana, nervous. Mutt turned slighty in his arms to replicate him, but, when he tried to move, the wound in his chest protested by sending a new wave of pain that clouded his senses for a moment , moaning loudly. Indiana sent him a distressed look. "Mutt, what do you feel?"

"This hurts like hell! How a hole so small can hurt so much?", asked Mutt, breathing heavily. Indiana, trying to move the boy as less as possible, supported his son´s head upon his chest.

"Easy, puppy, breathe with me, as one, slowly, very good little one. You have to try to control your breathing, because if you don´t, the pain and the fear will take possesion of you and you will get worse, okay? Try to keep my rhythm, stay calm, hold on, don´t think about anything else but breath", whispered Indiana in his ear. Mutt nodded weakly, trying to follow his father´s orders, with unequal success. "You aren´t the only one who has gone through this, child. I remember one time, when I was in southern Spain looking for the remnants of the lost civilization of Tartessos, that appeared from nowhere a troop of treasure hunters shooting us to steal our discoveries. Unfortunately, they got them, but no before leaving me a beautilful present in the form of a shoot...in a very unorthodox place".

"Where?", asked Mutt. Indiana smiled, happy to have achieved his purpose of distract his son from his pain.

"In my butt", said Indiana.

"They shot you in the ass? I can´t believe it", asked Mutt, barely capable to contain his laughter.

"Yeah, in my ass. I passed a whole month complaning in a hospital lying on my stomach besieging to the nurses to give me some painkillers until they discharged me from it with a wonderful scar and a float to sit down on for the next two months".

"You are kidding me, right?", laughed Mutt.

"Unfortunately, I assure you, it´s true. Ask your mother if you don´t believe me, I´m sure that she still remembers how that scar looks like", smiled Indiana, knowing very well what would be his son´s reaction to his words and the face that the boy´s put of absolute disgust confirmed his suspicions.

"Oh, my God! Too much information!", growled Mutt. Indiana laughed.

"That happens to you for make fun of your father. Tell me how are you feeling now. Any better?", said Indiana, seeing him lightly calmer than before.

"I am in pain...and weak...and dizzy...and confused...I can barely see anything else beyond your face", said Mutt.

"And you don´t need to see anything else. I will take care of everything, you don´t need to worry about anything, understand? Now, you only have to concentrate on resisting, tomorrow we will begin our return and very soon we will reach some place where we will find some especialists who will take a proper care of your wound. Don´t worry, everything is going to be all right".

"I am almost more scared of the quacks than of the russians", said Mutt.

"I undestand you better than you can imagine, puppy, but if those damn doctors make you suffer in any way I will kill them, do you agree? Do you trust me?"

"I trust you. After everything I saw you do in the past two days, I think you deserve it", said Mutt. Indiana sighed, relieved. He still feared his son´s rejection, hear him said the same words of hate that he listened earlier as the worst of the curses possible, but the confidence that he showed him while he was clinging to his neck as his last resort touched his heart. But the memories that Marion related him only a few minutes before were still crossed in his soul.

"Puppy, about what happened before...you know...our little argument before that son of a bitch shot you...", Indiana began to say, feeling Mutt tense in his arms almost immediately at his words, "I don´t think that you are a failure, I never thought such a thing, I told you that because I was mad at you, but I assure you that this isn´t true. You aren´t, in any sense possible, a failure".

"Yes, I am and that is what you think because it´s the truth".

"NO! It isn´t! You have proved these days that you aren´t a failure, that you are a very smart, corageous and good boy and I am very proud to be your father and the only thing I regret is not hadn´t been there to see you grown up, but I will be with you from now on! You aren´t a failure!", shouted Indiana.

"You are lying and you wouldn´t be retracting right now if mom hadn´t told you off or said to you what happened with the Nazis when I was little", said Mutt. Indiana´s silence was more than revealing. "I knew. Mom told you what happened that night and now you are trying to persuade me that I am not a failure because you feel pity on me, that´s all, but you still believe I am a failure and you are right, I am".

"Yes, she told me, but that doesn´t change anything! I should never tell you something like that, much more when it´s obviously a lie. Believe me, please, you are far, far away from being a failure", said Indiana, but he saw that Mutt´s look was lost among the mists of the past and realized that his son put his left hand inadvertently in his right forearm. Fearing that his child could have another injuries that would have gone unnoticed by him, Indiana inspected Mutt´s right forearm to discover a large, old scar that crossed his skin from the wrist to the elbow, which had gone unseen by Indiana to have been hidden under his leather jacket until that moment. "Damn Nazis sons of a...".

« It wasn´t you fault. By then, you didn´t even know I existed", said Mutt.

"I´ll kill them. Tell me who were the ones who dared to attack you, I will chase them and give them a death so painful that the inquisitorial tortures will seem them a party!"

"Don´t waste your breath, old man. They lost the war more than ten years ago, they must be dead right now or at least prisioners...but, even if they were alive and free, what they did to me won´t change, whatever you could do to them in revenge. You won´t obtain anything chasing old ghosts", said Mutt. Indiana looked at him, surprised that a statement so wise could come from someone as young as his son and hugged him with all his strenght.

"As long as I remain alive, I will never allow that something like this could happen to you again, I swear, I will always protect you, my little boy", told him Indiana, rocking him in his arms.

"Even you aren´t infallible, old man",

"For you, I will be. In addition, you have to admit that I do it well. Come on, recognize it", teased him Indiana. Mutt growled.

"It´s true...to be almost one hundred years old, you fight very well...", said Mutt. Indiana chuckled.

"Surely, I am not as young as I used to be, but there is still Indiana Jones for a long time, kid, I assure you", said Indiana, while he saw his son holding back his tears again before a new wave of pain overcame him. "Puppy, you don´t have to be strong anymore; cry if you want to, shout if you need to, it doesn´t matter; feel is not a weakness. One can´t always be strong, baby".

"When you show your weakness, the others will take advantage of them to hurt you so... do it isn´t an option for me".

"Mutt, listen to me. There are a lot of people in the world who wants hurt you, I can´t deny that, but no man are made of stone and a human being always needs to show his feelings, in one way or another. You can´t hide them forever; what do you have to learn is to know in who you can trust; but, even taking precautions, sometimes you will be betrayed, as Mac did to me, but if you always pretend that nothing matters and supress your feelings, they will destroy you at the end. Did you undestand me?", Indiana told him. Mutt nodded, weakly. "You can trust me, because nothing of what you could do or say will make me love you or worry about you less than I do now and I can assure you it´s much more than you can ever imagine, so you don´t have to pretend when you are with me. I want to know everything about you, what do you think, what do you feel, even what do you dream about and I will never think that you are weak or silly for that. Be scared it´s human, as well as make mistakes, and I can´t help you if you don´t let me, ok? Will you tell me?".

"Old man...", whispered Mutt, after a few seconds of silence.

"Tell me, puppy".

"Right now, I am very scared", murmured Mutt, with a lump in his throat.

"You don´t have any reason to be scared, little one. Everything will be ok, I am with you. Why are you scared?"

"Because I am going to die", said Mutt. Indiana couldn´t help shivering of fear hearing his claim and hugged him tightly against his chest, trying to shield him from his own fears.

"You aren´t going to die, did you hear me? I am going to save you, I promise you".

"I can´t believe you. As much as you want it, you are not almighty, doctor Jones...even you can´t beat the Death if it comes here looking for me".

"For you, I will defeat death itself", assured Indiana. Mutt let escape a skeptical laughter.

"What are you going to do? Are you going to try to steal her scythe with your whimp while you kick her skull?", said Mutt, ironic. Indiana growled, but he didn´t answer. "You can´t save me this time, doctor Jones".

"Listen to me, Mutt. I can only ask you to have faith. I know that you feel bad, that you are hurt and scared, but I am not going to let my son die. A shot, as long as doesn´t affect vital organs like the heart or the brain, isn´t have to be mortal, and, if I remember correctly, your bullet isn´t in any of these places. It is very unpleasant, but with time and proper care, you will heal, I´ll make sure of that. And, when all this would only be a bad memory, you will have a beautiful scar to fancy in front of all the girls".

"If I survive, I will have to invent a good story to explain it".

"You will survive, because if for some reason that isn´t going to happen you don´t make it, I will follow you without any doubt. And you don´t have to invent any story to justify your new scar, the way in which you really acquired it was heroic enough".

"Yes, but what happened was too personal...this isn´t something that everybody who asks about it deserves to know", said Mutt. Indiana nodded.

"Ok, but, please, puppy...don´t do something like this never again. If we see ouselves in a situation like we was up there before in the future...and knowing my luck something like that will happen again...don´t save me, did you undestand me? In the dichotomy of choosing between my life and yours, I rather to die a milion of times before see you dying in my arms. Promise me that you won´t try to save me never again", said Indiana. Mutt shook his head.

"What I did today...I will do it again if it is necessary...I lost my father twice in the past, doctor Jones: once when I was born and he didn´t know I already existed; the other when the man I thought was my father died in the war when I was too young to keep even a memory of him. As far as I can avoid it, I won´t loose my father a third time, even if he is a stranger to me. I won´t be a coward".

"Oh, Mutt...", whispered Indiana, touched, hugging him tighly, "please, don´t risk yourself like that again; your life won´t worth anything if you loose it for someone who will follow you to the grave in the very moment you die. Please, promise me you will never do something like this again".

"I won´t promise you anything...that under no circumstances I will keep. I may be a failure, but at least I have pride. I won´t commit perjury; I am sinner enough by myself, thanks", resolved Mutt.

With a proud smile, Indiana caressed the almost blond curls that the water had stuck in his son´s forehead, making him seem even younger in his eyes, almost a little kid. Indiana thought that maybe that was why he worried so much about his damn hair, wanting desperately not seem the child he still was. "For the love of God", thought Indiana, "he is seventeen, he IS only a baby, I didn´t know anything at his age...although I thought I knew everything at that point. He shouldn´t be thinking about that things...his only worries in this damn world should be his stupid bike and girls, not death, not thinking that one day he will have to let himself being killed instead his father!".

"Even if you aren´t one, like I already told you, for many more reasons than I can describe, what you just said make you a person completely different of what can be considered as a failure. But I won´t insist; it will be as you wish, my puppy, but I will always make sure that you are safe and I will show you, every day of the rest of my life, that I am extremely proud of being you father", said Indiana, kissing his temples. Mutt looked at him with emotion in his blue eyes and Indiana couldn´t help returning him a little smile.

"You are getting soft, old man", said Mutt.

"Yes, I thinks I am getting too old for this things. But at least now I have an heir".

"In your dreams, old man, I never said I will follow your steps in the future, so forget it".

"Come on, pup, I saw you in action, I know you like it. Return to a quiet life it´s very difficult after having tested the flavour of the adrenaline of the action in your lips. Fixing bikes or fighting occasionally in some street brawl, it doesn´t have comparision at all, you know it".

"I can´t deny that...despite the consequences, it was interesting...very interesting, in fact. You shold have seen the face that Ukrainian mummy put when I stole her the skull! She couldn´t believe that she was being beaten by a brat like me!", laughed Mutt.

"I saw her, I saw her", smiled Indiana when Marion´s voice interrupted their conversation.

"Indy! Is Mutt all right? You are spending too much time with him in that river, what´s happening? Is he worse?", asked Marion in the distance.

"Everything´s fine, Marion! We will go out in a moment!", shouted Indiana. "Well, puppy, we will continue this conversation in a less humid place, ok?"

"Just one last question", murmured Mutt.

"All you want".

"Did you call me puppy?", asked Mutt. Indiana laughed.

"Of course. From now on, you will always be my little puppy and I will call you that, every day and in front of everyone", Indiana laughed, annoying him. Mutt looked at him absolutely horrified.

"What!? You never...Don´t call me like that again, it´s horrible!", protested Mutt. Indiana laughed at his embarrassment and caressed his hair.

"I think you have no choice, pup. I am your father and, at least, I can call you whatever I want. And I think that you will be stick with that nickname for the rest of my life", said Indiana. Mutt growled in annoyance, but he didn´t say anything. "Now, I have a last question for you. Why on Earth don´t you stop me now when I touch your hair? Don´t you mind about your quiff anymore?"

"For the love of God, old man, I am in the middle of the damn Amazon, only in underwear, in a river, in your arms and with a bullet in my chest, I assure you I would be very stupid if I worry about my hair right now. Besides...I lost my comb", whispered Mutt. Indiana let go a sincere laugh while he was assuring his son in his arms before starting to walk away from the river with him.

"When we reach the civilization again, I will buy you a new one with your name engraved in gold letters if you wish".

"Which one, Mutt or Henry?"

"Neither of them. It will have engraved "Pup", I assure you", laughed Indiana. Mut growled in disgust one more time, but he didn´t replied. "What? None ingenious answer? Now I am beginning to worry about you".

"Stop bothering you child, Jones, he can´t even hear you so...", began to say Marion, before realizing that his son was awake in her lover´s arms. "Mutt! You are awake! I was so worried about you...!"

"Before witnessing an uncontrolled attack of maternal love here", sitting in the floor next to the fire with Mutt still in his arms", "bring his clothes, he is freezing".

"Oh my God, this is the most embarrasing moment of my whole life", whispered Mutt. "I am in the middle of the jungle, in my underwear, wet from head to foot, dishevelled and in the arms of a father who barely know on which I rely completely at this time. Wow, I am a real man right now!".

"Don´t be so hard on yourself, Mutt, you are badly injuried", told him Indiana. Marion bought his clothes and she began to dress him carefully.

"My mother didn´t have to dress me since I was three years old!", snorted Mutt.

"Three years old? Don´t you mean six? I don´t know a lot about children but I can assure you that at six I still tried to put my trousers above my pyjamas", said Indiana, wrapping him up with his own jacket.

"He is right, Indy. He always was a very independent child. My sweet little boy...", said Marion. She ended dressing him and hugged him, but Mutt didn´t returned it. His mother looked at him without understand. "Mutt, what´s wrong?"

"Why you didn´t tell me, mom? Why did you hide the truth from me?", asked Mutt, moving away from his mother and taking refuge in Indiana´s lap.

"I already told you, Mutt, the best for you was to think that Colin was you real father, you were so young, you couldn´t undestand...", began to say Marion, but Mutt stopped her.

"Cut the crap, mom! Stop lying to me! You told him everything that happened with the Nazis, you know perfectly well that since then I always knew Colin wasn´t my real father! Hell, mom, I asked you in your face about that archaeologist the Nazis told me about and you denied me the existence of my real father staring straight into my eyes! How could you lie to me like that? You know that every damn day I asked myself about my father, looking for the answer that you had, but you didn´t want give them to me! Why you let me blame myself for his absence when I was a child, mom? Give only one reason", begged Mutt. Marion, feeling his baby blue eyes in her own, coudn´t avoid look away.

"I didn´t want to see you suffer...", said Marion.

"I already suffered by then, you knew it. Tell me the truth. Why did you hide it so long? What was the reason?", asked Mutt.

"Only my cowardice, baby...", whispered Marion. Mutt let escape a tired sigh.

"Enough", sighed Mutt. To Marion, the tone of resignation disguising the deep dissapointment he felt didn´t go unnoticed. She couldn´t bear the rejection of his son and the pain she knew he was feeling at that time, so she tried to hug him, but Mutt moved away one more time.

"Please, my baby..."

"Don´t, mom. I don´t want...I can´t argue with you right now... much less about this. Just...let it drop, ok?", whispered Mutt, tired and Indiana looked at Marion meaningfully, suddenly afraid of the weakness of his voice. Marion nodded with an average smile that perished when his son looked away from her and embraced Indiana drowning in pain.

"As you like, son. In this moment, all of us will do what my little baby boy wants", joked Marion, but when Mutt rejected her again she couldn´t avoid exchanging a pained look with Indiana. "All right...I think that I will go to see if Ox is okay...He is alone in the jungle right now and that crazy old professor always find some new ways to get into trouble, so...Indy, will you take care of Mutt? Shout if something happens; I will be back in a moment with Ox", said Marion, getting up. Indiana nodded.

"Of course. Go to get Ox, we will be fine. Don´t worry", said Indiana, hugging Mutt. Marion nodded and, after sent a last guilty look to Mutt, she dissapeared in the depths ofthe jungle.

"She will kill me when I get well for this, I know it. But right now, I can´t barely see and much less think straight, so...", whispered Mutt. Indiana inconsciously cooed him, resting his chin in his head and hugging him tightly.

"Do you know something, pup?", Indiana said after a moment of silence. "You shouldn´t have treated your mother that way. She only wanted to protect you from me, I hurt her so much in the past that the reaction she had was a normal one. Her desire to protect you is something that you should take into account. Don´t judge her, pup".

"Her problems with you...were and are something in which I shouldn´t interfere. You left her without any explanation at all one week before your wedding and I can understand that she would have like hide me from you...but she should have told me the truth, especially after that night. My own relationship with you shouldn´t be her problem, that´s between you and me", murmured Mutt.

"I hurt your mother so much in the past and you can´t ask a mother to tell his own son something that she thinks it would break his heart, Marion would never do something like that. Mothers are always so protective with her children and Marion isn´t different...for the love of God, even I feel so overprotective with you since I know you are my son that I think if someone try something as innocent as approach to you in this instant I will kill him with my bare hands...and you are almost an adult now, I don´t even imagine how I would feel if I have been with you when you were little...I think that I would have done the same thing if I that would mean shield you from pain. She thought I was going to reject you because... the night before I left I told her that I didn´t want to have any children in my whole life and we had a huge fight about the matter, that´s why she was trying so desperately to keep you away from me, because she didn´t want you to suffer for my rejection", said Indiana. Mutt looked at him, hurt evident in his eyes.

"So...you didn´t want me, that´s why you left. What did you do to make mom so angry? Did you want to abandon me as a baby or something like that? Did you want to get rid of me? All this time I was right...they were right...you left mom because I was a burden to you!", shouted Mutt, trying to get away from Indiana´s embrace, but his father avoid it.

"NO! OF COURSE I DIDN´T WANT TO GET RID OF YOU, YOU ARE MY SON, I LOVE YOU! Please, Mutt, stop, you are hurting yourself even more! I didn´t know about your existence by then...hell, even your mother didn´t know she was pregnant when we argued about this, I was conjecturing by then! Please, believe me, I would never have left your mother if I had known about your existence, you would never have been out of my sight, like you will never be from now on! I won´t left you again, I swear it!", shouted Indiana, panicking at the thought that his son would hate him after that confesion. Mutt stopped struggling and began to relax again in his father´s arms. Indiana kissed his forehead and felt that his fever was so high that it almost make the great archaeologist cry. "Never EVER again think that it was your fault or that those bastards were right because it is a complete and utter lie! Your mother didn´t know why I didn´t want to have any children...I just told her when you were inconscious...I was afraid that someone could harm them or kill them only to make me suffer...I knew that I would love my son more than life itself, that´s why I didn´t want have them, I was too afraid of losing them...I was coward. If I would have known you already existed, that I have a son...nobody would have been powerful enough to tear us apart...I would have spoiled and overprotected you until death, pup...And I will do it in the future, I assure you, so get used to the idea because I will never let you go again...I told you what happened because I want you to undestand your mother..I am the only one to blame for your mother´s behaviour. Don´t be so hard with her, she only did that because she loves you very much. I would have done the same".

"I trusted her...maybe if I didn´t her lies wouldn´t hurt so much now...", sighed Mutt. Indiana caressed his hair lovingly.

"I already told you why she did it, she was trying to protect you and...", began to say Indiana, trying to be patient with him, but Mutt cut him off.

"The lies...hurt much more than the most terrifying of the truths..." whispered Mutt. "Since that night I knew Colin wasn´t my father and she denied everything. The words she didn´t say, the lies promulgated and not believed and the broken trust were slab a lot heavier to bear for me than the worst of the realities. Above all, my most powerful enemy was myself...every day of my life since the attack of the Nazis I wonder who my father was and why he wasn´t with me. I was a child, I thought all was my fault! For God´s sake, I didn´t even know if you were dead or alive! When I was little, I liked to think that my father was a kind of secret agent of the government who couldn´t stay with us because his rivals might do us some harm, but he took care of us from afar because he loved us dearly...but the most of the time since the attack that Ox and I suffered I thought that my father didn´t want me, that it was my fault he left us, that he abandoned us to our fate because I was a failure and a bad child and that I ruined my mother´s life! Can you imagine how hard was for a five year´s child to think that he is the resposible of his mother´s suffering, that my father abandoned me? No, you can´t know how I felt then, but she saw me every day, she knew what I thought about the matter and she never said anything! One single sentence about it would have been enough to calm all my suffering...a sentence she never told me. My relationship with you, no matter how bad it could be, would have been wonderful compared with the things I could imagine during the times of discouragement and, in any case, it would haven been my responsability to deal with it, not hers for hide the truth from me! She had in her hands the power to erase my pain...she didn´t want to do it and, in this very moment, I can´t forgive her", sighed Mutt, weakly. Indiana hugged him tightly.

"Puppy..."

"Don´t call me that".

"Puppy", said Indiana again, ignoring his protests like his own father did with his when he called him Junior, "you have every right to be angry with your mother for this...but you have to undestand that she did it for your own safety, because she loves you, but she took a bad decision, everyone commits mistakes. As I already told you, I would have done the same things in her place if that meant shield you from any pain. In any case, she is the only mother you have and you must forgive her...you never know what do you really have until you loose it, my child", told him Indiana, playing with his blonde curls.

"I know but...I was so little and I was confused and scared and I felt so unloved and alone at that time while she lied to me one time and another and another in my face knowing perfectly well that I felt guilty and hurt about my father´s dissapearence...I think now that I thought that way about you until the very moment I knew the truth, although I tried to deny it. I feel weak enough right now to admit that I still was mouning my father´s absence at seventeen...it hurt me so much for so long time that now I can´t help but feel so...so..."

"Hurt?", tried to help Indiana.

"Betrayed", sighed Mutt, closing his eyes and trying to get his hand to his head, but Indiana prevented it. Guessing that he should have a very painful headache courtesy of his high fever, Indiana began to massage his temples tenderly. "But she doesn´t have to worry about anything...I have never been able to spend a lot of time angry with her. It didn´t matter how hard our fights were, she always has that irritating ability to make me forgive her everything. It will happen again now, it´s only...I can´t do it right now".

"Yeah, I know about what you are talking about...I can´t be mad at her for a long time either. That why she always wins all our arguments", laughed Indiana. Mutt rolled his eyes, but he didn´t make any comment. "Change the subject. Everything will be all right once we leave this damn jungle".

"If I live to see it, of course", said Mutt. Indiana opened his mouth to replicate him, but his son cut him off. "Do I have more unknown family?"

"More family?", asked Indiana, puzzled.

"Yeah...I don´t know anything about you. Do I have grandparents? Uncles or aunts? Cousins? Brothers or sisters, perhaps?", asked Mutt, hope evident in his voice. Indiana chuckled.

"No, puppy...I am only child, just like you. My mother died when I was very young and my father did it only a few years ago...I am afraid that you must resign yourself with me, kiddo".

"And brothers?", asked Mutt again.

"Well...you have an adopted brother...Shorty...a kid I found trying to steal my wallet in the streets of Shangai nearly twenty years ago...I lost the count...now he is a grown up man and he has his own family...It´s been long since the last time I saw him...He will be very glad to meet you, I am sure, but, when it comes to biological brothers...unless your mother has hidden something else from us I believe that you don´t have any, pup".

"Are you sure? After all, you didn´t know I existed", asked Mutt.

"Pretty sure, yeah. Certainly, your mother wasn´t the only woman in my life in the past years, but if any of them had gotten pregnant coinciding with the dates of our relationship, I would have found out and asked her if her baby could be mine, so I think you are my only secret son, pup", smiled Indiana. "_But I will call ALL my ex girlfriend as soon as we will reach the civilization to make sure that Mutt is my only secret son. And the first will be Willie, that´s sure", _thought Indiana.

"If you say so...", sighed Mutt. Every second, his eyelides became more and more heavier and the sound of his father´s heart in his ear lulled him to sleep like a lullaby. He felt so weak...so bad...everything was spinning around him and breath without feel any pain seemed like an impossible task for him at that moment. He was trying to stay awake, to talk to his father...his father...how strange that word seemed to the teenager by then, but that didn´t minimize the importance it had to him.He has a father at last...one he didn´t know, but who loved him dearly...the fact that he was there, holding and hugging him like there was no tomorrow, too afraid to let him go for only a second for the fear he could die in any moment demostrated that. But Mutt didn´t know if they would have the chance to know him...he could feel his life slipping through the wound of his chest and the throbbing pain in his head hardly let him think straigh. He only wanted the pain to stop, to sleep...to welcome the unpainful darkness which everything forgive. But he was scared...afraid of the death he knew close, although sleep a little and forget his anguish for a moment could be bad, right? Only a little...he was tired of fighting for stay conscious against the pain, he wanted to escape from the weakness, the confusion, the cold, the frightening darkness that threatened to surround him forever...

"Ey, ey, ey, it´s not the bedtime, puppy", told him Indiana, shaking his son´s head slightly, watching his increasingly vain attempts to stay conscious.

"I am sleepy and it´s cold...If isn´t bedtime, it is definitely the moment to take a nap...", said Mutt, trying to make himself more comfortable in his father´s chest, but Indiana didn´t let him. He didn´t want him to sleep, to loose conciousness. Inside his heart, he was scared that his son would never awake again; he could slip into a coma and die before he could see his beautilful baby blue eyes again. Indiana had to avoid that from happening, he needed to make him stay awake, but he didn´t know how. Indiana panicked looking how Mutt closed his eyes and didn´t opened them. His father shook him one more time with renovated strenght until he opened them again.

"No, you need to eat something", said Indiana, trying to sound calm and collected in order to didn´t scare his kid more than he already was, even if the archaeologist was in the verge of the nervious breakdown. "When Marion and Ox return with some food, you have to eat; if you don´t, you will never regain your strenght".

"Old man, all the damn jungle is spinning around me, I don´t think that any food I could eat will remain in my stomach more than two seconds, I won´t eat anything! I just want to sleep...".

"You shouldn´t sleep!", shouted Indiana, desperate. "Please, pup, you have to stay awake as long as you can!"

"But I can´t hold on any longer...the darkness is surrounding me and I am so tired...I can´t stay awake", whispered Mutt, closing his eyes again. Indiana cupped his face in his hand and let escape a loud curse. His fever had rised again and he was becoming more and more weak each second. Mutt made the effort to open his eyes one more time, even if he couldn´t longer moven any other part of his body, and looked straight in his father´s blue eyes, blue as the sky, blue as his own. The child´s eyes, lost in the distance, was fixed in his father´s, although everything around him was collapsing and the darkness, closer and closer, were going to wrap him one more time. Indiana knew he tought he was going to die; Indiana had failed to reasure his baby and now his blue eyes, those which he would never thought he could deny anything were looking at him begging for help. One help his father couldn´t give him. And then Indiana felt his heart brokening in two when he heard the last words that left his son´s lips before falling back into the opening arms of the unconsciousness in his father´s lap:

"I am scared...please, Dad, don´t let me go...".

I hope you like it! I want to thank specially to pdantzler2 for everything! Thanks a lot, my friend!

Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and for the patience your have with my story and my bad english. Thanks to albagaro (Thanks for your support!), thunderincrimson, kashu, anonymous (maybe one day, when I finish this one, but I love to get Indy worried. In the films he seems so tough and uncaring in general, much more with Mutt in the latest one, that the character make us doubt that he could love his newfound son and I personally think that´s impossible. A love between a son and a parent...it´s impossible to describe and there´s nothing more important in all sense for a father than his own child, but the circumstances surrounding Indy´s acknowledge of his newfound child make it difficult for them to built a real relationship unless something drastic happens that could show Indy the love that he undoubtely have for Mutt like all the fathers have for his kids for the very moment they knew about their very existence...I thinl that it´s a shame that the film don´t pay any atention at all in their relationship. That´s what I think. I hope you like it!), Writing Destiny (it´s the best? I assure you I´m blushing at this very moment. Thank you!), Mary B. (Jaja, Mutt hate it, as well as Indy hate the nickname Junior, but he can´t do anything about it...I don´t think Indy change his mind about it), susan q., kat1021, missyme89, Ravenwood85 (gracias por la review, siento haber tardado tanto), pokerfacejones, De-gnome (I know, I trying to improve, I hope you like it!), ecstaticmanic, GunslingerExtraordinaire (Oh, thank you very much for your comment, but I know I still have a lot of mistakes in my writing. Yep, Indy was horrible to Mutt in the first chappie, but he is paying for it! Hope you like it!), Templa Otmena (thanks to you for your comment) and A Person.

Review, please. I really want to know what you think about this chappie! Until the next time!


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